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breaking up our happy circle; but ah! there came one, with stealthy steps, who had no such scruples!

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"The merry shout of the children is hushed in the wide halls; anxious faces are grouped on the piazza; for in a darkened room above, lies Mary's princely husband, delirious with fever! The smile has fled her lip, the rose her cheek; her eye is humid with tears that never fall; day and night without sleep or food, she keeps untiring vigil; while (unconscious of her presence,) in tones that pierce her heart, he calls unceasingly for 'my wife!' She puts back the tangled masses of dark hair from his heated forehead; she passes her little hand coaxingly over it; she hears not the advice of the physician, 'to procure a nurse.' She fears not to be alone with him when he is raving. She tells no one that on her delicate breast she bears the impress of an (almost) deadly blow from the hand that was never before raised but to bless her. And now the physician, who has come once, twice, thrice a day from the city, tells the anxious groups in the hall that his patient must die; not one dare break the news to the wretched Mary! There is little need! She has gazed in their faces with a keen, agonized earnestness; she has asked no questions, but she knows it all; and her heart is

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dying within her! No entreaty, no persuasion can draw her from the bedside.

"The old doctor, with tearful eyes, passes his arm round her trembling form, and says, 'My child, you cannot meet the next hour-leave him with me.'

"A mournful shake of the head is his only an. swer, as she takes her seat again by her husband, and presses her forehead low, upon that clammy hand; praying God that she may die with him.

"An hour of TIME-an ETERNITY of agony has passed! A fainting, unresisting form is borne from that chamber of Death.

"Beautiful as a piece of rare sculpture, lies the husband!-no trace of pain on lip or brow; the long, heavy lashes lie upon the marble cheek; the raven locks, damp with the dew of death, cluster profusely round the noble forehead; those chiselled lips are gloriously beautiful in their repose! Tears fall like rain from kindly eyes; servants pass to and fro, respectfully, with measured tread; kind hands are busy with vain attempts to restore animation to the fainting wife. Oh that bitter, BITTER waking! (for she does wake. God pity

her!)

"Her hand is passed slowly across her forehead; she remembers! she is a widow!! She looks

about the room-there is his hat, his coat, his cane; and now, indeed, she throws herself, with a burst of passionate grief, into the arms of the old physician, who says, betwixt a tear and a smile, 'Now God be praised-SHE WEEPS!"

"And so with the falling leaves of Autumn, 'the Great Reaper' gathered in our noble friend. Why should I dwell on the agony of the gentle. wife? or tell of her return to her desolate home in the city; of the disposal of the rare pictures and statuary collected to grace its walls by the refined taste of its proprietor; of the NECESSARY disposal of every article of luxury; of her removal to plain lodgings, where curious people speculated upon her history, and marked her moistened eyes; of the long, interminable, wretched days; of the wakeful nights, when she lay with her cheek pressed against the sweet, fatherless child of her love; of her untiring efforts to seek an honorable, independent support? It is but an every-day history, but (God knows) its crushing weight of agony is none the less keenly felt by the sufferer!"

V.

THE SECOND MARRIAGE.

FORTUNATELY for the subject of our sketch,

her father, though poor, as we have said, hastened to make what provision he could afford for the comfort of the broken family. Nor did Dr. Eldredge turn a deaf ear, or pass by on the other side. Some bitter thoughts were doubtless occasioned, by the remembrance of the luxuries of which she had been so suddenly bereft; it was hard to sink like a star behind the hills of adversity to pass suddenly from a gay and splendid career into the obscurity of a more common-place and quiet life; and we can excuse the sensitive Fanny for some unreasonable complaints; but, thanks to her own and her husband's father, she had the consolation and treasure of a home-a home, which, however modest, was in

every respect comfortable, and not altogether inelegant.

Sarah Eldredge was now in the full flush and vigor of womanhood-and a widow! It is a wise provision of nature which ordains that the most deeply wounded heart shall not always bleed. Hope springs from the ashes of grief. Time buries the dead past, and lifts the curtain from the glowing future. Night comes, that another morning, with all its glory and freshness, may dawn upon the earth. Why then waste the energies of youth in mourning over graves ? They will not give up their dead; already the spirit of the lost one looks down upon us from blissful spheres, and says, "Be happy!" to our sorrowing hearts. Such a voice came to the young widow. She called reason and faith to her aid. She saw herself still blooming and attractive; the same inviting world lay all around her; she longed for sympathy, for change, for life. Her first matrimonial venture had proved a happy one; and the memory thereof prompted her to risk another voyage on Wedlock's perilous sea. Thus it might have been the very power of love that bound her to her first husband which threw open the welcoming doors to the advances of a new suitor.

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